According to his AAU head coach Omhar Carter (MBA Hoops founder and CEO), "Mario has been selected the third best player in the class of 2016 by HoopScoop. It's a great honor for Mario."

To say Mario was surprised when he heard about the honor would be an understatement.

"It did surprise me when I was told about it," he said. "I was like 'are you for real?' He said, 'yeah, you are number 3.' I was just shocked."

But Mario also realizes there is still work to be done to become the best player that he can be. Being selected number 3 gives him an even higher goal to reach.

"It means that I should continue working and try to get to number 1, that I'm not the best and should keep working to get to number 1," he said.

He's got a handle on his overall game, including what he is good at and what he needs to continue to work on.

"My strengths are rebounding, getting to the basket, playing hard, blocking shots, things like that," he said. "The things I still need to work on include my shots, my ball-handling and my defense."

The work he's doing on his ball-handling and shooting have been noticed by Carter.

"His ball-handling has improved and he's added a better shot to his game," said Carter. "He's shooting the ball more consistent now. He was already very athletic, tall and long and now he's added those two things."

Carter, who also coaches standout Malik Newman, Scout.com's number 6th rated player in the class of 2015, believes Kegler is right there as far as being the best player in the state of Mississippi, all classifications.

"I think he and Malik are 1A and 1B as far as the state (of Mississippi) overall," he said.

College coaches have already taken notice of the talented freshman.

"College coaches can't really talk much about him because they can't talk to him right now (due to his classification)," said Carter. "But he's definitely getting a lot of interest. Unofficially, schools that are interested in him are some of the bigger universities, schools like Tennessee, Auburn, Mississippi State, Ole Miss; really the entire SEC. But there is only so far that they can go with him right now."

Keep it on GenesPage.com as we continue to follow Mario Kegler, one of several class of 2016 big men that Mississippi State head coach Rick Ray is recruiting.

Gene Swindoll is the publisher of the GenesPage.com website, the source for Mississippi State sports on Scout.com sports network. You can contact him by emailing swindoll@genespage.com.